


The Critic (crossposted to Tumblr)

by Routcliffe



Series: Mulige Verdener [2]
Category: Ylvis
Genre: Gen, I kveld med Ylvis, No Sex, Smut
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-05-03
Updated: 2016-05-03
Packaged: 2018-06-06 03:15:12
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,334
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6735805
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Routcliffe/pseuds/Routcliffe
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Michaela has a seriously weird day at work.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Critic (crossposted to Tumblr)

The young man took a sip of wine, adjusted the cloth napkin in his lap, and raised his fork to his lips. He sat back, and chewed thoughtfully. “The seasoning is just right,” he observed. His accent was Oxford. "Now, it’s well done, which as far as I’m concerned is ordinarily an excellent way to ruin beef, but with a cut of meat like this, medium rare just isn’t going to work. You want it done thoroughly, which is the case here. And it’s been properly tenderized, which solves the _other_ issue with this cut. Very well done. Four stars.“

Michaela nodded, and ticked off boxes on her clipboard, trying to keep the incredulity off her face. 

He sipped the wine again, swirled it around in his mouth, and swallowed, slowly nodding his approval. Then he turned his attention to the other morsels on his plate. He had to chase one of them onto his fork. Then he crunched down. “Hm." He grimaced. "Texture’s okay. I’m not completely sold on the flavour." He smacked his lips. "It starts out bold, but there’s a _soupçon_ of blue cheese.”

“Blue cheese?” she echoed. It was Horace who selected and procured the ingredients, but she knew every one of them, and there was nothing that accounted for blue cheese.

“Indeed. I’m not sure that it works for me." He smacked his lips some more. "As a matter of fact, I’m quite certain that it _doesn’t_ work for me. It develops quite an unpleasant aftertaste.”

“It’s really not meant to be, ah, eaten with red wine, sir.”

He held up his glass, eyeing it contemplatively. “You think a nice white, then?" 

"May, I, ah, inquire as to where you _found_ the wine, sir?”

“Most certainly, my dear. This is a 1987 Cabernet Franc from Chinon, in the Loire Valley. It goes very well with beef. The vineyard has been owned by the same family since the seventeenth century.”

She couldn’t be quite sure, but she thought his accent might have slipped just now. “I mean, how did you get the bottle in here? Where did you get the _glass_?" She gazed around the quality control office. It was spotless, the few cabinets locked. "We’re a pet food factory. I don’t understand how you–-" She glanced around frantically. "I could get in a lot of trouble for this, I mean, a _lot_ of trouble." 

He was smiling up at her now, blue eyes wide and innocent. She had no idea what his story was, but this was obviously just a bloody lark for him. He wasn’t drowning in debt for a degree that meant nothing in this job market, stuck in a godforsaken factory town with unemployment in the double digits, taking care of a sick mum. This job had been a gift, a godsend, and a year in she was just getting the hang of it. 

As she watched, the smile got wider and wider, and he pressed his lips together and squeezed his eyes shut, and his shoulders started to shake. "Sorry… sorry.”

She wanted to slap the grin off his face, Mister Oxford Bigwig, sneaking wine into a place that made dog food. “Don’t you know grapes are poisonous to dogs? I could be fired for this!”

Still convulsed with laughter, he pointed wordlessly, and she followed his finger to a camera perched on top of the shelves. Oh god…a test. He was an inspector. She froze, eyes locked on the camera.

He touched her arm, poking at her wrist until she tore her gaze from the camera and looked at him. His lips were still twitching, but he’d calmed down considerably. “Bård Ylvisåker,” he said, in an accent that was decidedly not Oxford, or anywhere else in the UK for that matter. He offered his hand, and she shook it numbly. “My brother and I have a comedy show in Norway. We got management’s permission to film today. Your job is safe. You did just fine.”

She sat, heavily, in the other chair. “You’re serious?”

“Well, no. That’s the point. But I am telling you the truth." He grimaced again. "One thing I _am_ serious about though: that dry food is terrible. I wouldn’t feed that to my dog. I wouldn’t feed that to Donald Trump." He stood up, looking, suddenly, quite pasty. "As a matter of fact, I think I would like to visit your toilets. _Now_.”

*** 

Two hours later, Michaela knocked on the door of the little first aid room just off the factory floor. There she found two blond men, one merely tall and the other dismayingly tall. “I’m sorry,” she said, “I was looking for Bård.”

The larger one pointed through a doorway to a small private toilet. Bård was hunched over the bowl, while a smaller, darker man held his dark blond hair back from his face with one hand and patted his shoulder with the other.

The tall men talked to her while she waited. They were Magnus and Calle, and they both wore fine suits and spoke excellent English, although their accents were closer to American. All four of them had been planted in different areas of the factory, sampling different product lines. They’d smuggled in the wine the night before with management’s consent, and they assured her that they’d been very careful about not letting any get near the product, although of course she didn’t care about that _now_.

Finally, the toilet flushed and water ran, and Bård came out, pale and shaky, leaning on his brother’s shoulder. The smaller man deposited him on the cot and got him a glass of water, which Bård held in both hands to gulp down. 

“Bård, how are you feeling?” Michaela asked.

“Better than an hour ago,” he said raggedly. “I think it might be passing. I guess you met Magnus and Calle. And this is my brother Vegard.”

Vegard spun around to Michaela with a hand extended. He had guitar player’s calluses, and tuna breath. “Are those the test results?”

She nodded. “ _Ustilago crassus_ ,” she said, brandishing a folder. “It’s a kind of fungus that grows on corn.”

“I have a fun fact about corn fungus,” Vegard offered. “In Mexico they grow it on purpose, and use it to fill quesadillas.”

“Urk,” Bård said, blanching again.

“No, but it’s a delicacy…”

“That’s a different species,” Michaela said. “If it were _Ustilago maydis_ , we’d be relatively okay, but _Ustilago crassus_ is mildly toxic to humans, and _very_ toxic to pets. We’ve had to pull the entire line of dry dog food, we’re testing everything else, and we’re just checking batches to see if any need to be recalled.”

“All because of me?” Bård said, brow furrowing. “Nobody else caught that?”

"Our usual three dog food testers are out sick today,“ she said. "Now we know why. The lads in the lab say it’s very possible they wouldn’t have tasted it; if you just chew and swallow, all you get is the artificial flavor we spray on afterwards. But not only did you hold it in your mouth for an absurdly long time; apparently the tannins in red wine would have reacted with the toxins in the mold to produce a really bitter flavour.”

“So what you’re saying is, our prank saved thousands of dogs,” Vegard said. 

“Basically, yes,” she said. 

“We didn’t get you in any trouble, did we?” Bård asked.

She grinned. “As a matter of fact, they’re talking about a promotion. I did try to tell my boss it was your catch, not mine, but she’s just so relieved that it was _caught_.”

“Well then,” Bård said, “I’ve never felt so lucky in all my life to get food poisoning.”

“Very very lucky,” Vegard agreed.

“Speak for yourselves,” Magnus said, nose wrinkling. “I had to test the snake food.” As Bård bolted past him, he protested, “Kidding! I was kidding.”

“I don’t think he cares,” Vegard said with a sickly smile, rolling up his sleeves and following.

**Author's Note:**

> I have been pestering friends on Tumblr for short little fic prompts, and they very kindly oblige.
> 
> Also: I didn't exactly set out to do it this time around, but I have always, ALWAYS wanted to use these tags.


End file.
